Terms of service
1. Welcome to Howiiconnect
Howiiconnect is a social networking, wellbeing and community engagement platform created to encourage meaningful connections, kindness, compassion, personal development and opportunities for people to support one another.
Our mission is to build a community where individuals feel heard, valued, respected and empowered to make a positive difference.
These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of Howiiconnect, including its website, applications, user accounts, profiles, posts, comments, private messaging, communities, groups, photographs, videos, wellbeing journals, mood-tracking features, events and networking services.
By creating an account or using our services, you agree to these Terms and our incorporated policies.
If you do not agree, you must not access or use our services.
2. Eligibility and Minimum Age
You must be at least 13 years old to register for Howiiconnect, and must also satisfy any higher minimum age or additional legal requirements applicable in your country.
We may restrict access in jurisdictions where operating the service would violate applicable law.
Users aged under 18 may be subject to additional protections, feature restrictions, age-assurance procedures or parental involvement where required by law.
You must provide accurate information about your age and identity where requested.
We may suspend or close accounts where we reasonably believe eligibility requirements have not been met.
Parents and guardians are encouraged to discuss online safety and responsible digital participation with young people.
3. Account Registration and Security
You agree to:
- Provide accurate and current registration information.
- Maintain the confidentiality of your login credentials.
- Notify us promptly of suspected unauthorised account access.
- Avoid sharing or transferring your account without permission.
- Refrain from creating accounts to evade enforcement decisions.
- Avoid impersonating another person or organisation.
You are responsible for taking reasonable precautions to protect your account.
We may introduce identity verification, multifactor authentication and additional security controls.
4. Our Platform Services
Howiiconnect provides facilities for users to:
- Publish posts and comments.
- Communicate through private messaging.
- Create, join and participate in groups and communities.
- Share photographs and videos.
- Maintain personal wellbeing journals and record moods.
- Discover and participate in events.
- Network and establish meaningful connections.
- View advertising and sponsored content.
Specific features may change, be restricted by age or location, or become unavailable.
Not all services are guaranteed to remain available permanently.
5. Community Conduct
Every user must treat others with dignity and respect.
You must not use Howiiconnect to:
- Bully, harass, threaten, stalk or intimidate.
- Promote hatred, discrimination or violence.
- Sexually exploit, groom or endanger another person.
- Encourage suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
- Publish unlawful sexual or exploitative content.
- Share private information without appropriate authorisation.
- Conduct scams, fraud or deceptive fundraising.
- Spread malicious software or engage in unauthorised automated activity.
- Impersonate others or deliberately mislead users.
- Promote dangerous or unlawful activities.
- Exploit individuals experiencing emotional or financial hardship.
- Infringe intellectual property rights.
- Evade platform safety restrictions.
Our Community Standards provide additional rules and examples.
6. User Content and Ownership
You retain ownership of the original content you create and upload, subject to any rights held by other parties.
You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary rights and permissions to publish your content.
By uploading or sharing content, you grant Howiiconnect a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt for technical formatting, transmit, display and distribute your content to the extent reasonably necessary to operate, secure, improve and provide the services.
This licence is subject to your applicable privacy and visibility settings and our Privacy Policy.
It does not grant us unrestricted permission to sell your private journals, private messages or other confidential content to advertisers.
The licence generally ends when the relevant content is deleted, except where lawful retention, existing redistribution, backup processes or legal obligations require otherwise.
7. Privacy and Confidentiality
Your privacy is important to us.
Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, protect and retain personal information.
Users should understand that information shared publicly may be copied, recorded, downloaded or redistributed by others.
Private messages and restricted groups are not guaranteed to be absolutely confidential. Access may occur where authorised and necessary for service operation, security, lawful investigations or compliance with applicable law.
We will not describe any feature as end-to-end encrypted unless that protection has actually been implemented and verified.
8. Wellbeing Journals and Mood Tracking
Howiiconnect may provide personal journaling and mood-tracking features to encourage reflection and wellbeing awareness.
These features are intended for personal use and self-reflection. They are not medical devices or substitutes for professional assessment, diagnosis or treatment.
Journal entries and mood information may contain sensitive personal information.
Their visibility, processing, retention and any authorised sharing will be governed by the Privacy Policy and the settings made available to users.
Private journal entries will not be made publicly accessible merely because they are stored within Howiiconnect.
Users must not use wellbeing features to threaten, manipulate or exploit others.
9. Mental Health and Professional Advice Disclaimer
Howiiconnect promotes social connection and peer encouragement. It is not, by itself, a professional mental health, medical, psychiatric, counselling or emergency response service.
Unless a service is expressly identified as being provided by an appropriately qualified professional, information shared through the platform must not be relied upon as professional medical or therapeutic advice.
We do not guarantee that another user's advice will be accurate, appropriate or safe.
If you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, contact your local emergency services or an appropriate crisis support provider immediately.
10. Groups and Communities
Group creators and administrators are responsible for complying with our policies.
They must not encourage harassment, unlawful activities, exploitation or other prohibited conduct.
Howiiconnect may remove groups, restrict administrative privileges or intervene where necessary to address safety concerns or policy violations.
Private group membership does not provide an exemption from platform rules.
11. Private Messaging
Private messaging must not be used for harassment, unsolicited commercial messages, grooming, fraud, intimidation or other prohibited conduct.
Users may report messages and accounts that violate our rules.
Where technically supported and legally permissible, we may investigate reported communications and associated information.
We do not guarantee that private communications will remain confidential from their recipients.
12. Events and Networking
Users may organise, promote or participate in events and networking activities.
Unless Howiiconnect expressly states otherwise, user-organised events are independently managed by their organisers.
Event organisers must comply with applicable laws, venue requirements, safeguarding obligations and our policies.
Users participate in offline meetings and events at their own risk, subject to rights and protections that cannot legally be excluded.
Howiiconnect does not guarantee the identity, qualifications, reliability or conduct of event participants.
13. Advertising and Sponsored Content
Howiiconnect may display paid advertising, sponsored posts, promoted events and commercial content.
Advertisements must comply with applicable advertising laws, our Community Standards and our Advertising Policy.
Advertisers must not misrepresent products or services, exploit vulnerable individuals or engage in unlawful discriminatory targeting.
Sponsored content must be appropriately identified.
Our collection and use of information for advertising are explained in the Privacy Policy.
Where required, users will be given choices concerning personalised advertising and optional tracking.
14. Intellectual Property
The Howiiconnect name, trademarks, logos, software, designs, branding and other proprietary platform materials belong to Howiiconnect or their respective rights holders.
Users must not copy, commercially exploit, reverse engineer or misuse protected materials except as permitted by law or authorised in writing.
Copyright owners may report suspected infringement through admin@howicare.co.nz
We may remove infringing material and restrict repeat infringers, subject to applicable law and fair review procedures.
15. Reporting and Content Moderation
Users may report harmful content, abusive behaviour, suspected fraud, exploitation, privacy violations and other concerns.
We may use human review and, where actually implemented and disclosed, automated systems to assess content.
Depending on the circumstances, we may:
- Remove or restrict content.
- Issue warnings.
- Limit messaging, posting or other functions.
- Restrict group or event participation.
- Suspend or permanently terminate accounts.
- Preserve relevant evidence where lawful.
- Refer serious matters to appropriate authorities where legally permitted or required.
We will consider the severity, context and recurrence of violations.
Users may request a review of eligible moderation decisions through admin@howicare.co.nz
16. Account Closure and Termination
You may request account deletion through admin@howicare.co.nz
We may suspend or terminate accounts for serious or repeated policy violations, security concerns, fraud or legal requirements.
Following closure, we will handle remaining personal information according to our Privacy Policy and applicable law.
Termination does not automatically remove copies of content lawfully retained by other users or information we must retain for legal purposes.
17. Third-Party Links and Services
Our platform may contain links to external websites, event providers, advertisers or other third-party services.
These services operate under their own terms and privacy policies.
We do not endorse or guarantee third-party products or services merely because they appear on Howiiconnect.
18. Platform Security and Prohibited Technical Activity
Users must not:
- Attempt unauthorised access to systems or accounts.
- Scrape or harvest personal information without permission.
- Introduce malware or harmful code.
- Circumvent access controls or security measures.
- Conduct denial-of-service attacks.
- Use unauthorised bots or automated engagement systems.
- Interfere with the operation of the platform.
Security vulnerabilities should be reported responsibly to admin@howicare.co.nz
19. Service Availability
We aim to provide a reliable and secure platform but cannot guarantee uninterrupted access.
Services may be unavailable because of maintenance, outages, cybersecurity incidents, regulatory requirements or circumstances beyond our reasonable control.
We may change or discontinue features with appropriate notice where required.
20. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Howiiconnect makes no guarantee regarding the accuracy of user-generated content, the conduct of other users, uninterrupted service availability or specific wellbeing outcomes.
We are not responsible for losses arising solely from independent user conduct where applicable law does not impose responsibility on us.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, wilful misconduct or other matters that cannot lawfully be excluded.
Nothing limits rights or remedies available under mandatory consumer protection legislation, including the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 where applicable.
Any additional monetary limitation of liability must be separately approved by legal counsel before publication.
21. Indemnity
To the extent permitted by applicable law, users acting in a commercial or business capacity agree to indemnify Howiiconnect against reasonable third-party claims, losses and expenses arising from their unlawful content, intellectual property infringement or material breach of these Terms.
This provision does not require consumers to indemnify Howiiconnect for losses caused by our own negligence, unlawful conduct or breach of mandatory legal obligations.
22. Applicable Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by New Zealand law, subject to any mandatory legal protections applicable in a user's country of residence.
Users should first contact admin@howicare.co.nz to seek resolution of a dispute.
Unless mandatory law provides otherwise, disputes may be brought before the competent courts of New Zealand.
Nothing in this clause prevents a consumer from exercising rights that cannot lawfully be waived.
23. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms to reflect legal, operational, security or service changes.
We will provide appropriate notice of material changes and obtain renewed agreement where required.
Changes will not retrospectively remove rights that have already accrued under applicable law.
24. General Provisions
If a provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply where legally possible.
Failure to enforce a provision does not constitute a permanent waiver.
We may transfer these Terms in connection with a lawful business restructuring, merger or sale, subject to applicable law and privacy requirements.
25. Contact Us
Howiiconnect Legal Entity: HIC - Hear It Change Limited, trading as How I Care NZ
Website: https://www.howiiconnect.com
Email: admin@howicare.co.nz
Registered Address: 343 Flat Bush School Road, Flat Bush, Auckland 2016, New Zealand
New Zealand Company Number: NZBN: 9429052900662